A fundamental objective of a vehicle wash system is to provide a process that thoroughly washes and cleans the exterior surface of a vehicle. The ability to achieve this objective depends, in large part, on the configuration and function of the vehicle wash components that treat the vehicle exterior. Many different types of vehicle wash components exist for washing and removing dirt from a vehicle exterior. One such current vehicle wash component is configured as a rotary brush with a plurality of media elements secured to a rotating hub. As a vehicle is conveyed through the vehicle wash facility, the rotary brush rotates and the media elements contact the exterior of the vehicle to remove dirt from and clean the vehicle exterior. Multiple rotary brushes are generally disposed adjacent a vehicle treatment area in the vehicle wash facility and contact the top surface (top brush) and side surfaces (side brushes) of a vehicle to clean the entire exterior surface.
While these rotary brushes work satisfactorily, they have known limitations. For example, most current rotary side brushes are oriented such that their axis of rotation is generally perpendicular to the ground. By this configuration, the media elements each extend the same distance into the vehicle treatment area. This provides sufficient cleaning for a vehicle having a side surface that is also generally perpendicular to the ground. However, current rotary brushes have cleaning limitations for vehicles with large angled side surfaces. This is because contact between the media elements of the rotary side brush and the large angled side surface of the vehicle is decreased due to the fact that the media elements do not extend into the vehicle treatment area a sufficient distance to contact the entirety of the angled side surface. As such, the quality of the cleaning is significantly reduced.
In an attempt to overcome this limitation, vehicle wash components have been introduced where the axis of rotation of the rotary brush can be moved from a vertical position to a fixed angled position in an effort to correspond to an angled exterior surface of the vehicle. By this configuration, the upper media elements of the brushes extend further into the vehicle treatment area and can thus better engage an angled upper surface of a vehicle. On the other hand, the media elements on the lower portions of the brush are disposed further away from the vehicle treatment area. Thus, while these tilted rotary brushes provide improved cleaning on the upper angled surfaces of the vehicle exterior, the quality of cleaning on the lower vertical surfaces of the vehicle is known to suffer. In other words, while the upper media elements engage the angled surface of the vehicle exterior, the lower media elements often do not sufficiently engage the lower vertical surfaces to provide the desired cleaning.
Another issue with current vehicle wash components is their inability to provide consistent cleaning for all vehicle widths. For example, while current vehicle wash components provide acceptable cleaning for some vehicle sizes and widths, they often are unable to provide the same cleaning of other vehicle sizes.